If you do not regularly read Max Kennerly’s Litigation and Trial blog you are not taking advantage of a wonderful opportunity to learn. I have never met Max, but his blog is well-written, thoughtful, and informative.
Need to be convinced? Read his post titled "Always Draft Angry Briefs. Never File Them."
An excerpt:
Legislation has been introduced that would require a patient suing an emergency room doctor, on-call specialist, or hospital providing emergency room services to prove that the negligence of the provider rose to level of gross negligence.
Given the declining number of medical malpractice cases and the fact that there are only 6 or 7 verdicts for patients in any given year, one must wonder about the need for such legislation. It springs from arrogance, greed, or both.
That being said, I support the legislation, with one little amendment that says this:
The Civil Litigation Blog has shared a list of themes that can be used in personal injury trials. While there is nothing particularly original on the list, I do not recall ever seeing such a list of potential themes in one place.
Once again we turn to Paul Luvera for guidance on some aspect of trial practice. Paul is an extraordinary lawyer who is kind enough to share his knowledge with us on a regular basis via his Plaintiff Trial Lawyer Tips blog.
This time, Paul shares his method of organizing for trial in non-complex cases.
An excerpt:
The National Safety Counsel announced yesterday that it estimates at least 28% of all traffic crashes – or at least 1.6 million crashes each year – are caused by drivers using cell phones and texting.
From the organization’s press release:
The estimate of 25% of all crashes — or 1.4 million crashes — caused by cell phone use was derived from NHTSA data showing 11% of drivers at any one time are using cell phones and from peer-reviewed research reporting cell phone use increases crash risk by four times. The estimate of an additional minimum 3% of crashes — or 200,000 crashes — caused by texting was derived by NHTSA data showing 1% of drivers at any one time are manipulating their device in ways that include texting and from research reporting texting increases crash risk by 8 times. Using the highest risk for texting reported by research of 23 times results in a maximum of 1 million crashes due to texting; still less than the 1.4 million crashes caused by other cell phone use.
Check out this commercial.
I don’t think this type of advertising would impact the lawyer’s credibility before the average Texas jury. Do you?
I am an optimist. Nevertheless, I attempt to have a "Plan B" in the event things go wrong.
For example, consider a case that Rebecca Blair and I tried a few years ago. We needed a computer in the courtroom. But because both of us have been around long enough to know that things can go wrong, we brought a back-up computer with the same information loaded on it that we had loaded on Computer 1.
Computer 1 died. No problem. Plug in Computer 2. It worked for a day or so. Then it died. A third computer was brought from the office with relatively little downtime (we had the info we needed on a CD) and it survived until the end of trial.
Work is underway on the third edition of Day on Torts: A Handbook for Tennessee Tort Lawyers. Laura Bishop and I have already identified over 30 new sections that need to be added to the book, as well as citations to well over 200 new cases.
If you have come across a topic that you believe should be included in the next edition please send me an email at jday@dayblair.com and we will find the leading case and add it to the book.
It is our hope to have the new book available in April of 2010. Hundreds of lawyers across Tennessee are using the earlier editions of the book and we believe that the new edition will be even more valuable to our fellow lawyers.
Some of you heard me rant about West Publishing Company during the recent Justice Programs seminar. Well, here are a couple great posts about West’s pollution of the blawgosphere.
The controversy arose when Findlaw launched "The New York Personal Injury Law Blog" years after a wonderful blog by the same name was started by Eric Turkewitz.
Here is an excerpt from The Legal Satryricon:
Tennesseans are clearing the grocery stores of bread, milk and other essentials as the National Weather Service informs us that snow will cover the state.
The threat of bad weather gives us the opportunity to review the law of Tennessee concerning the liability of possessors of land concerning ice and snow. Here is a nice summary of that law from Bowman v. State:
Dangerous conditions caused by the natural accumulation of snow and ice are considered to be among the ‘normal hazards of life.’ Grizzell v. Foxx, 48 Tenn.App. 462, 467, 348 S.W.2d 815, 817 (1960) (citing Goodman v. Corn Exchange Nat’l Bank & Trust, 331 Pa. 587, 200 A. 642, 643 (1938)). Accordingly, the courts employ the same principles to determine the scope of a property owner’s duty with regard to natural accumulations of snow and ice that they use to establish the property owner’s duty with regard to other dangerous conditions.
